The teachers’ pay increase proposal negotiated between the Ministry of Education and the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) was sabotaged by GTU’s Coretta McDonald and other persons with a political interest in industrial strike days before it was finalised.
This is the position of the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo who lambasted the politician for the role she played in the union’s decision not to accept the ministry’s offer at his weekly party press conference held at Freedom House, Robb Street.
Dr Jagdeo revealed for the first time on Thursday that teachers would have benefited from approximately $12B in salary increases alone over the next three years of the agreement. He said this sum did not include the non-salary measures that covered scholarships, concessions and allowances.
He posited it was supposed to be adjusted if the government offered any other public sector employee increases at a higher level.
“We have spent nearly $40B on wages and salaries for teachers per year. Over the [next] three years, when you look at it cumulatively, that will be about maybe just over $12B… The offer for the three-year package is to increase wages and salaries alone for the teachers would be about $12B in the next three years. That is how much more teachers will get…leaving out the other adjustments we’re making,” the GS highlighted.
Dr Jagdeo further pointed out that the government always intended and will continue to pursue satisfactory measures collaboratively.
The GS highlighted that the statements circulated by the President of the GTU, Dr Mark Lyte, confirmed that the Union’s General Council had agreed to the Government’s three-year proposal.
Somewhere along the line, Dr Jagdeo said, the Union’s General Secretary Mc Donald sought to sabotage the joint effort by publicly condemning and then rejecting the proposal.
As a result, Dr Jagdeo questioned the legitimacy of the Union Leader’s actions, citing that the rejection does not represent the original decision to sign the Memorandum of Understanding.
“If you claim you have six thousand members of ten thousand members, then did you formally put this to the membership?” he questioned.
GS Jagdeo then accused McDonald of receiving and carrying out instructions from the political opposition.
“The General Council of the Union had made a decision to accept this offer and Coretta McDonald, taking instructions from Congress Place, went and sabotaged this [agreement]. [She] worked up people, got in touch with a large number of people, other teachers to write in, put it in their WhatsApp groups that they rejected this,” he lamented.
He further went on to say, “This doesn’t constitute a formal decision by the membership. The formal decision was made by the General Council of the Union.”
The GS posited that the Opposition never intended to have the issues of teachers resolved by the government.
“The General Council made a decision, and she comes along. They (McDonald and others) are taking instruction from Congress Place. She is a politician from APUN. They don’t want the issue resolved with teachers, so she sabotages the General Council and she gets the headline as though she is speaking on behalf of the union, but misleading the newspapers,” the GS said.
Dr Jagdeo further suggested that McDonald should not be quoted as the definitive voice of the GTU.
The general secretary is hopeful that good sense prevails and the teachers take the offer that the government has on the table.